


freed

by kanpeki



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, eiji can fly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:50:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanpeki/pseuds/kanpeki
Summary: Eiji had known freedom.





	freed

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd
> 
> Possible spoilers

It was on nights like these, the air heavy with impenetrable weight, Ash out well past human hours. Instead of sleeping, Eiji tosses in his bed, his mind on a boy with jade in his eyes and a revolver tucked into the back of his pants. 

Eiji was once a pole vaulter. He had known freedom. 

He knows he will never get it back.

It is three in the morning when the door turns, an almost imperceptible click. He is always careful not to disturb Eiji. Eiji is careful not to give himself away.

Ash falls easily into the darkness, and Eiji is left to listen to the sound of another person’s chest rising and falling, rising, falling, until finally he too lets himself slip into restless sleep. 

Ash is still fighting to be free. 

It is on nights like these that Eiji wishes he could take Ash away. They could leave behind the death, this ungodly world of crime, the smell of blood on Ash’s hands. No one could reach them. Japan would be bearable again if only Ash were there. 

And yet.

He knows deep down Ash could never leave New York. This is his home, his entire life, this is him. Ash belongs to the streets, to take Ash away from this place would never make him free. And in any case, Eiji no longer thinks of Japan as home; he has not missed it once since he came to New York (although he does think of his mother and sister halfway across the world). But why should he? His home is right here, all breathtaking blonde hair and piercing green, a few feet between them, they lie, together, not touching. 

They meet in a bar, of all places. He is drawn, right away, to his striking coloration, unknown intensity of those eyes, that easy grace. It is his first time seeing a gun.

When the gunfire starts he can only react with confusion. Then, panic. If not for Skip, he thinks, he surely would have been caught in the crossfire, let go of his life then and there. They are captured, of course, because it had to be a set-up, and there is blood on his face from the man whose head snapped forward just now, his grip on Eiji loosened. 

Ash follows them, is captured. Eiji sees his own death playing out then and there. But it is Ash who creates an opening, and for the first time since that day he is alive. 

He could be free again.

For a second, Ash, too, is flying. 

He must have realized, even then. Maybe that’s why, even though he knows Charlie has Ash’s best interest in mind, he could never tell him to let go of what he has, not when it is finally within reach. 

(So he can learn to fly again.)

One night Ash makes his way into Eiji’s bed. He is gone before morning. 

They never talk about it, because they don’t have to. They are best friends, however trite that label feels on his tongue. He can no longer imagine himself without Ash. He wonders, at times, if he’s replaced Shorter, but then Ash and Shorter were never this. He only wishes that this could go on forever.

They don’t talk about it, but he knows without him saying. Ash knows he is awake. Eiji knows he knows.

Still, they don’t talk about it. 

And if Ash is gone all night with the smell of murder on his body, well, it is Eiji who will always be on his side. Even this cage is only a roosting place for now, their own refuge against the rest of the world, that cruel, vindictive place.

When the time comes, they will be free.

**Author's Note:**

> Short character sketch I worked on instead of homework


End file.
